He's "Gorgeous George"—sexy, talented, and rich, a nice guy and a wiseguy. No wonder everyone's gunning for him

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George Clooney just can't wipe that grin off his face. Take the night of September 24, 2007, at the New York premiere of Michael Clayton: Despite having broken a rib in a motorcycle accident several days prior, and as a result, squiring his hobbling girlfriend, Sarah Larson, down the red carpet, the grin was in full effect—glorious as ever, strategically deployed in all its variations.

Later that night, watching Clooney in one of his darkest roles, as a conflicted corporate fixer (a performance that would win him critical raves and Oscar buzz), guests could view the grin in stunning Technicolor. "Do I look like I'm negotiating?" Clooney asks costar Tilda Swinton in one scene. His tone is deadly serious, but if you look closely you can see the grin lurking just below the surface, tugging at the corners of his mouth.

According to Hollywood insiders, Clooney is an overhyped egomaniac, a phony, and a "bully" with a "whopping temper" Of course, the man has his reasons: At 46, he's clawed his way to the top of the business, an incontestable A-lister and respected director with final-cut status. He's seen as "a burlier version of Cary Grant," according to a recent Los Angeles Times piece (the writer went on to compare him to Sinatra and Bogart)—a man about whom one could write a biography and, with a straight face, entitle it The Last Great Movie Star, as author Kimberly Potts did last year. And no one knows better than Clooney that his trademark all-knowing semi-smile has had everything to do with his success. Not the expression itself, exactly, but the utter confidence underlying it, a confidence that's unparalleled even in Hollywood, where it has never been in short supply.

Clooney's self-assuredness is backed up by real accomplishment, too. With 2005's Good Night, and Good Luck, which he cowrote and directed, he took on one of Tinseltown's most cherished villains, the red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy, and won! He then challenged the nation's troubled Middle East policy with Syriana, which he executive produced and starred in. Hollywood never passes up a chance to occupy a sliver of moral high ground, especially during awards season, and Clooney was leading the charge: Between the two films, he received an unprecedented trifecta of Oscar nods (director, writer, and supporting actor), going on to win for his turn as Syriana's tormented CIA agent.

But the actor is no stuffed shirt, either, no humorless Sarandon-ista, a point driven home by his brilliantly nonchalant performances in the Ocean's films, playing the roguish ringleader to a pantheon of Hollywood royals while burnishing his rep as the Rat Pack reincarnate. Unlike Frank Sinatra (the original Danny Ocean), Clooney has used his powers for good, growing a bit of stubble and smuggling a camera crew into Darfur (though he upstaged the genocide a bit by mentioning the nasty case of food poisoning he picked up on the plane ride home).

Meanwhile, he's juggling myriad projects—10 in development and five in production, including the forthcoming period football comedy Leatherheads, which he's helming and starring in. But he always manages to work in a regular dip in Northern Italy's Lake Como, where he owns a $10 million mansion—he was there over the winter holidays—or a joyride on one of his hogs around the Hollywood Hills, near the famous eight-bedroom Casa de Clooney. (It's never a real escape, though, since in either circumstance, the paparazzi—"bounty hunters with cameras," as he puts it—are always lurking.)

No other celebrity has a brand so diverse, so perfectly positioned, or so impervious to the vicissitudes of fame. George Clooney is at once the ultimate playboy—a confirmed bachelor, he has twice been named People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive—and a gentleman. He is a commercial superstar and an art-house auteur. He's the town's moral authority and an adorable scamp. What's not to love?

Indeed, for the past few years his public image has hovered above those of his famous colleagues like a gleaming bubble rising from a heavily perfumed bath. But recently, Clooney's impossibly flawless exterior seems to have taken on too much air, with reports of some very un-Clooney-like behavior. There was, for instance, that motorcycle crash in Weehawken, New Jersey, which left girlfriend Sarah Larson with a broken toe (the parties blame each other, and the case is still under investigation), and a near-fistfight with romance-novel cover boy Fabio in November. Suddenly, Clooney's become the bubble people are lining up to pop.

The most recent salvo was fired by, of all people, Rupert Everett, who in a December 15 interview with the UK Independent, took aim at the actor's unusually diverse résumé: "Clooney thinks that provided he does films which are politically committed he's allowed to do Ocean's Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen. But the Ocean's movies are a cancer to world culture. They're destroying us."

Everett didn't confine his comments to Clooney's filmic output. "He's not the brightest spark on the boulevard," he went on, predicting, "He'll be president one day. Mark my words, if he's straight, he'll be president." Though Everett seems to have meant it as an insult (and in the waning days of the Bush years, it's gotta sting), Clooney's name has, in fact, been bandied about recently as a possible candidate for governor of California, and, according to gossip columnist Cindy Adams, Arnold himself is fanning the flames. (Of the buzz, the actor has said, "Believe me, you don't want me in politics." Self-deprecating, sexy, yet slyly ambiguous—that's Clooney!) As for Everett's bit of sexual innuendo, girlfriend Sarah Larson, a former Las Vegas cocktail waitress, is the latest Clooney conquest. (The actor famously swore off betrothal after his four-year marriage to actress Talia Balsam ended in divorce in 1993.) The list of women he's been linked with since is notable mainly for its length and—save for reported dalliances with actresses Renée Zellweger, Lucy Liu, and Teri Hatcher—his apparent preference for civilians.

At the moment, Clooney still has plenty of admirers. It's hard to see an upside to publicly slinging mud at the man; Hollywood needs as many unsullied gods of the screen as it can get. But increasingly, an avid anti-Clooney faction is emerging. No one, save Everett, wants to go on the record, but under cover of anonymity the tales emerge, sprinkled in many cases with a dose of real resentment. According to Hollywood insiders, Clooney is an overhyped egomaniac, a phony, and a "bully" with a "whopping temper." And worst of all, at least in Hollywood: He can't open a movie.

"Oh. you mean Mr. Beautiful, Mr. Nice, Mr. Politically Correct, and All That Other Crap Guy?" growled a formidable Hollywood agent when asked about the actor. "He's the perfect human being, except that he has the biggest ego in the world and never lets the public know because it wouldn't be the right kind of image."

Lately, though, we've been treated to tiny glimpses of that other Clooney. Back in August, for instance, an Italian reporter at the Venice Film Festival asked him how he squared Michael Clayton's critique of corporate greed with his recent ad for Nespresso, given the international boycott of Nestlé for pushing what critics say is potentially harmful infant formula in developing countries. (Video available here.) As he listened to the question being translated on a headset, a deeply tanned Clooney ran through an amazing array of expressions (annoyed, condescending, threatening, confused, disgusted...) before offering the most dismissive response imaginable: "Yeah, okay—look, I'm not going to apologize to you for trying to make a living every once in a while," he offered before mentioning his efforts in the Sudan and concluding with a wave of the hand, "It's sort of an irritating question."

And the famous Clooney grin was nowhere to be seen on the evening of November 2, 2007. The actor was dining at the swanky Hollywood eatery Madeo when a camera flash raised his ire. (Clooney has made no secret of his hatred for the paparazzi, reportedly installing an egg-throwing machine at his Lake Como estate to pelt shutterbugs who dare to cross an infrared barrier—though he denies it in an e-mail to Radar.) He seems to have thought the group of women at a nearby table were snapping his picture, but in fact they were documenting their evening with another sex symbol. Harlequin heartthrob Fabio (recently profiled in Radar by this writer) was participating in a charity event on behalf of the 11-99 Foundation, benefiting California Highway Patrol family members—and Clooney, for once, was in the background.

As Fabio tells it, one of the six women at his table informed him that "a gentleman" a few tables behind him was flipping the bird every time she took a picture. (Indeed, in one of the shots, which later made its way to tmz.com, you can make out Clooney, middle finger raised, over Fabio's shoulder.) Recognizing Clooney, Fabio says he approached the actor's table to explain the situation.

"He says, 'Fuck you,' and tried to push me—but I didn't move, and instead he fell back," Fabio recalls. "Then I got in his face, and I called him every name in the book. And he says, 'Get away from me, you big thing.'" Fabio's impression of Clooney's voice is decidedly unmanly. He also notes that the actor appeared to be in his cups.

The former cover boy returned to his table, but says he finally lost his temper when the actor dropped by on his way out to call one woman a "fat bitch" and another a "fat cow."

"That's when I got up, but he ran out of the restaurant," Fabio says, adding philosophically, "It doesn't matter how much money you have. If you're white trash, you're always white trash. He's not even half a man."